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War of words steals the show

Viggo Mortensen and Julie Christie are coming to the Toronto International Film Festival. They're also among the latest high-profile names – which include actor/singer/activist Harry Belafonte and author/intellectual Noam Chomsky – who've signed a declaration opposing the festival's decision to showcase Tel Aviv in its inaugural City to City program.

By Bruce DeMaraEntertainment Reporter

Fri., Sept. 11, 2009

Viggo Mortensen and Julie Christie are coming to the Toronto International Film Festival. They're also among the latest high-profile names – which include actor/singer/activist Harry Belafonte and author/intellectual Noam Chomsky – who've signed a declaration opposing the festival's decision to showcase Tel Aviv in its inaugural City to City program.

On the other hand, filmmakers Ivan Reitman, Robert Lantos and David Cronenberg and actress Minnie Driver have signed on to the camp supporting the festival and the Tel Aviv program, accusing their opponents of, among other things, "political censorship."

As the festival enters its second day, the international war of words and the battle for moral supremacy shows no sign of abating.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, named by Newsweek as America's most influential rabbi, flew to Toronto yesterday to announce the Dec. 7 Toronto premiere of a film about Winston Churchill and took the opportunity to denounce protest organizers.

Toronto-based writer/activist Naomi Klein fired back hours later, saying protest supporters have collected more than 1,000 signatures from artists, filmmakers and activists around the globe. An event is planned for Monday evening to publicize the final list.

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Members of the Jewish Defence League have announced they'll hold an event this morning to express their support for the Tel Aviv program, which celebrates the city's centennial.

Yesterday, in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Palestinian artists delivered a letter of protest to the Canadian mission and openly called for a boycott of the film festival.

Local protesters are not advocating a boycott of the City to City program. Tickets are selling briskly for the 10 movies in the series, with several screenings sold out.

Ever since Canadian filmmaker John Greyson pulled his film from the festival last month in protest and started to organize fellow artists and filmmakers, the issue has gone from local to global.

Hier, founder of the Wiesenthal Centre and Moriah Films, and a two-time Oscar winner, denounced the protest by more than 65 artists and filmmakers as "nonsense" and "a recipe that calls for the destruction the state of Israel."

He directed his ire particularly at Jane Fonda, one of the first to sign the declaration, and at Klein, who is Jewish.

"I have known Jane Fonda for a long time. When I saw that she was one of the signatories, I could not believe it, I was absolutely shocked," Hier said.

Sources say Fonda will respond to Hier's comments in a statement later today.

Actor Jon Voight, who worked with Fonda in the acclaimed 1978 film Coming Home, has issued a stinging denunciation of her.

Klein shot back yesterday in an interview with the Star.

"I have no desire to destroy the state of Israel. Neither does Jane Fonda or Harry Belafonte. It is an absolutely absurd claim and profoundly unfair," Klein said, adding that more than 40 Israeli artists, many of them filmmakers, have joined the protest.

"What our letter has done is given people a forum to say `not in my name' and I think people have been enormously brave.

"I am so moved by (the support), but I am so disturbed that people are being punished for their bravery by having their characters smeared."

Klein said protesters' main issue is the festival's decision to give "special status" to Tel Aviv in the aftermath of Israel's invasion of Gaza eight months ago.

"This is what's so unfair to the (Israeli) filmmakers, to keep bringing it back to their films. Their films are not the issue; the frame is the issue, the spotlight, the celebration. This puts Israel on a pedestal in this of all years and we are objecting to that."

Klein said that some Israeli filmmakers in the Tel Aviv showcase have told her they were participating reluctantly.

Hier said those who signed the declaration are "slandering" Israel and "doing the work" of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has frequently called for the destruction of Israel.

He said he's "embarrassed" that fellow Jews have joined the protest, arguing they are "misreading history."

The protest declaration (which can be viewed at torontodeclaration.blogspot.com), insinuates that the Tel Aviv choice was made because of an ongoing Brand Israel campaign. That was flatly denied by TIFF and a spokesperson in the Consulate General of Israel's office in Toronto.

Festival organizers, who have posted their defence of the program on the TIFF website at bit.ly/jvCUz, declined to comment further on the issue yesterday.

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